


Unsaid

by lodgedinmythoughts



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Anger, Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Lost Love, No Dialogue, Pining, Post 6x18 "Lauren", Reflection, Resentment, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:22:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29659593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodgedinmythoughts/pseuds/lodgedinmythoughts
Summary: In the aftermath of "Lauren," Spencer reflects on all the things he never got to say…and then, upon finding out the truth, reflects on the hefty bag of emotions that follows. Set between 6x18 and 7x2.
Relationships: Emily Prentiss/Spencer Reid
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	1. Unsaid Then...

_I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye._

Those were the words he uttered to JJ at the hospital before she blocked his path and gathered him in her arms. But he had to get past her, had to see Emily just to make sure it wasn’t all some nightmare, but the redness of JJ’s eyes and the reaction of the rest of the team had him realizing it wasn’t one after all.

It couldn’t be real. Not Emily. Not her. Not when she was so intelligent, so full of life and vitality. It wasn’t fair that a person of such indomitable spirit could be snuffed out from existence just like that. Life was seldom fair, he knew, but some things just couldn’t and shouldn’t be allowed.

He carried her casket. Cried for her. Walked at the forefront and stood by as she was lowered into the earth. If there was ever a time he might’ve wished he was the least bit spiritual, it was then so that he might find comfort in the possibility that she was in a better place. But even without any quantifiable proof of that, he did know that her atoms would become one with the earth again, and by extension, the universe, and she would live on in that way, and that, he told himself, had to count for something.

But he didn’t like thinking about it. Didn’t think he ever would. Because he’d never get to hear her voice again. Never hear her laugh. He’d never get to see that smile that tugged at something in his chest, made his body grow warm.

But even without his eidetic memory, he knew he’d remember her face for the rest of his days. And that in some ways was worse because it meant she’d henceforth exist only in his memories, no longer flesh and blood. No longer a mere phone call or desk away.

He never got to say goodbye, but there were so many other things he never got to tell her.

He never got to tell her that he’d always admired her tenacity and bravery, that she was both hard and soft and always managed to be either, or both, at the right time. He never told her about the way his entire body thrummed with an acute awareness when she was near, that he secretly loved that he had an excuse to look at her as she discussed a case and that he took full advantage of it every chance he got. He never got to tell her that he appreciated her willingness to listen more than she knew, that he could confide in her about his deepest fears, and that he was grateful they’d been friends first and he’d gotten to know her without the pressure and theater of courtship.

He never got to tell her that he loved her dark eyes and dark hair. That he loved the way she smelled when he got close enough, and that he loved those moments when he got to hold her in his arms as they hugged.

He never got to tell her that he loved _her_.

It’d been one of the bigger challenges of his career, and probably life, to continue operating in the same space as her and act as though he didn’t want to look at her and _just_ her and always be in the same room just so he could see her, be near her.

He was usually mentally present when they were working up a profile, and he always gave it his all when they worked to apprehend the unsub, but the fact that Emily had always been around had just added an extra sense of familiarity and home in which he’d found comfort. It was an awareness that was always in the back of his mind, the comfort she unknowingly offered him, and it wasn’t until it was ripped away that he realized how much he’d come to depend on it.

And just as he’d always worked those cases with the team before, he worked them after, and still she was on a constant loop in the back of his mind—because how could she not be after everything—except this time instead of that sense of home and familiarity, it was a screaming, agonizing sensation of _Emily, Emily_ , as though asking why her, why now, why why why, and _why’d she leave me_ and _why is a part of me so unbearably, so unimaginably lost now?_

He’d do anything just so he could have her back. But he’d lost her before he ever had her. If he were a braver man, he’d have told her long ago, might’ve said something like, _Emily, I think I’m in love with you_ , and maybe she would’ve laughed in his face—though regardless of her own feelings, that wouldn’t be an Emily thing to do—but at least he’d have told her and she’d have taken her last breath knowing someone in this world loved her, would’ve moved mountains for her.

If he’d told her, maybe the unendurable and unfathomable pain that kept him up at night every night would be manageable by just a modicum. But, he suspected, maybe not.

He took out his anger at the firing range. He spoke to her every night in the solitude of his room as he lay awake. He visited her grave, spoke to her then. At first, it was never out loud, just a silent outpouring of his grief, but then one day the words came spilling out of his mouth, and with no one around to hear, he told her just how much she meant to him.

But in the end, it didn’t matter.

In the end, they would still just be words left unsaid.


	2. ...And Unsaid Still

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was all he could do not to just stand there and stare, dumbfounded, at a loss for words.

For seven months, he’d thought she was dead. He’d wept for her, mourned for her, and now, after all his grief, half of which he hadn’t even processed, she was back. Standing before them, as real as ever. And still there was no time to process what just happened, what had flipped his world on its axis yet again, because there was still Doyle to deal with.

They still had a little boy to find, and he had to channel all his energy and emotion into that instead of doing what he really wanted, which was to grab her and pull her into his arms, to absorb the warmth of her body into his own to remind him she was real and safe and with the team—with him—again.

Then the deep-seated anger and resentment scratched their way to the surface. He was no longer able to hold back his feelings about the deception laid out by JJ, Hotch, and, of course, Emily herself.

If he had no emotion clouding his judgment, his logic would dictate that the secrecy of her covert exfiltration had been necessary. As an FBI profiler, he understood that. As a friend, someone who was, against all better judgment, hopelessly in love, he wanted to rage.

So he took it out on JJ, the friend to whom he’d gone for months on end so he could cry and mourn and try to make some sense of it all. JJ, who’d sat and watched him cry himself sick, all the while knowing the truth. The betrayal he felt was so keen it physically stung.

Then Emily came to him on the plane after the case in Oklahoma, and he couldn’t deny the unspeakable relief at seeing her face as she took a seat across from him. He was weighed down by all those conflicting emotions, but still he wished he was brave enough to reach across the distance and take her hand as they’d done after they were trapped in the cult compound together years before.

Then he made the decision to show up at Rossi’s house the following night where he finally allowed himself to take it all in, that they were all together again. They were his family, and it was something he vowed never to take for granted again.

And maybe, even after everything, he was still too afraid to voice his feelings for her out loud, but he told himself that he would do everything in his power, that he would move those mountains, to make sure she was still around for the day he grew brave enough to confess. If he ever grew brave enough.

But she was back with the team and healthy and _still alive_ , and that was the most important thing of all. She still touched him and looked at him with that softness in her eye that had him thinking maybe, just maybe, she might feel the same way.

And that, for now, had to be enough.


End file.
